Chris Jordan - Torn

As he passes through the reception area, one of the staff members helpfully points the way to the underground passage that leads directly to the Hive.

“No need for the heavy coat, Mr. Gouda!”

His first reaction: there’s a new shift at the desk, so how do they know who he is? Then he sees them furtively consulting computer screens as guests stumble into the lobby, and Shane recalls his picture being snapped for the ID badge.

He hates that they’re so well-organized. That’s not going to make his task any easier.

“Can I leave this here?” he asks, handing over his puffy down jacket.

“Not a problem,” says a cheerful young woman with gleaming white teeth. She whips out a plastic coat hanger, deftly suspending the jacket on a partially filled clothing rack. Practiced and efficient, all part of the routine.

Probably some discreet security staffer will go through my pockets later, he thinks. Through everybody’s pockets. Which might explain why the connecting tunnel wasn’t mentioned when he arrived last night. An opportunity for security to see what telling items might be left in all that bulky clothing. Clever, and it confirms his assumption that his ‘domicile unit’ will likely be examined in his absence.

Maggie’s data file, downloaded to a flash memory stick about the size of a postage stamp, has been secured upon his person. He’s resolved that any attempt to retrieve it will result in broken limbs, and not his own.

As to the room itself, they can search it to their hearts’ content. He left not a fingerprint behind. Mr. Gouda being meticulous about hygiene, wiping the taps and so on. Not that a print would do them much good. Like all current and former agents and employees of the FBI, his fingerprints are stored in supposedly unhackable files and not available to unauthorized inquiries. His laptop, purposefully left in place for their perusal, has been scrubbed of everything but RG Paving spreadsheets and estimating software. They might, he supposes, harvest some DNA from his pillow-even a healthy scalp sheds a little dandruff-but that won’t get them anywhere because he’s made sure his DNA is not on file. Not at the FBI, not anywhere.

Professional paranoia, perhaps, but it has saved his life more than once. He has to assume that whoever abducted Haley Corbin will know she had been consulting with a former FBI agent who specializes in child recovery cases. Will they be expecting an intrusion from Randall Shane? Print and DNA data are covered, but facial recognition software would make an easy distinction between the ersatz Ron Gouda and the real one, so there’s always the possibility that he was flagged at the checkpoint and is now under surveillance.

Not that he’s seen any sign of it. So far he’s been treated like all the other ‘guests.’ That is, like cattle being gently but firmly funneled down the old chute. According to Maggie, the real genius of the Ruler organization is in knowing precisely everything about the financial status of all potential members, as well as other personal details that may prove useful for maximum extraction of cash. Five grand for a three-day seminar is just the beginning.

At that price, Ron Gouda expects a damn good breakfast, and Shane finds himself in total agreement.

The Hive is-and he hears the joke more than once-buzzing. Shane counts twenty-seven other guests filing into a spacious, glass-domed cafeteria. Sorting themselves out by choosing tables, then wandering up to the sumptuous buffet. Shane, who feels like a bear coming out of hibernation, picks up the commingled scents of bacon, eggs, pancakes, maple syrup. He loads up a plate. A big plate.

He’s here to mingle, and so homes in on an occupied table. “Hey there, mind if I join you?”

Of course they do, but the Gouda doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Shane, far from an extrovert in real life, is rather enjoying the hail-fellow-well-met persona of the man he’s impersonating. He introduces himself and shakes hands, making it impossible that his tablemates fail to respond in kind.

An attractive young couple from Duluth, currently “doing good” with an Amway franchise and looking to move up in the world. A lean, hungry-looking term-insurance salesman from Kentucky who doesn’t say much but looks to be measuring Shane for a policy pitch. Last and most interesting to Shane, a forty-year-old woman with flinty, intelligent eyes. Quickly sizing him up, she lets everyone know she started a chain of trendy convenience stores in Southern California. That explains the slim platinum Rolex on her sun-freckled wrist, and the self-confidence that makes her push back at the biggest, loudest male at the table, if not the gathering.

“So what do you do, Mr. Gouda? Whatever it is, I’m guessing it keeps you outside a good deal. Construction?”

Shane grins. “Got me. You want a road built in the state of Ohio, a mall parking lot, whatever, you go to RG Paving and we’ll get ’er done, if I have to drive the machine myself. Which normally I don’t, not anymore.”

He gets the impression the grab-and-go queen wants to establish where he fits, statuswise, and that in her mind outdoorsy construction is somewhere below her own level of success.

The term-insurance guy, sensing an uneasy standoff, says, “I always liked the smell of hot asphalt. Weird, I guess, but it reminds me of summer.”

“It’s an honest smell,” Shane says, chuckling heartily. “Just be glad I’m not in the Porta Potti business. Oops! Sorry, didn’t mean to spoil your appetites.”

But the woman with the flinty eyes hasn’t given up. “I’m curious,” she says. “What prompted your interest in joining the Rulers?”

He shrugs. “Haven’t joined yet,” he points out. “Just checking it out. Fact is, some of the most successful people in my state are in the program. Contractors, politicians, entrepreneurs. So I’ve been told. Folks don’t advertise they’re Rulers, exactly. My impression, it’s like a private club.”

“And you like private clubs?”

“If the club is to my advantage, I do. And make no apologies for it, neither! Thing is, I heard about that little introductory seminar they give in Dayton, thought I’d give it a shot. I liked what I heard. Enough to get me to sign up for a look at the real deal. We’ll see. If it makes sense and it puts me ahead, why not?”

Satisfied, the woman with the flinty eyes works on her fruit salad. Not a big breakfast kind of person, apparently.

The others make small talk, and Shane manages to introduce his recollection of a Ruler-one of those at the little old intro seminar in Dayton-whose first name is Missy. She made an impression on Ron Gouda, but not so much that he can recall her last name, or where she was from. Did any of the others happen to run into the little lady?

Nobody had.

When Shane finishes his plate, he pushes it back, gives a sigh of satisfaction, and says, “I don’t know about anybody else, but I slept like a baby last night. Must be this mountain air. Normally I’m an insomniac kind of person-too much going on in my head, I guess. Can’t recall the last time I fell asleep before ten o’clock, and slept right through.”

The others admit, the couple somewhat shyly, to falling asleep almost instantly, and all at about the same time. Shane leaves it at that, not wanting to share his own suspicions about airborne sedatives contributing to the situation. Which makes sense, in a perverse, mind-control kind of way. Casinos pump in oxygen to keep the gamblers wide-awake, why not do the reverse if you want to make sure potential Rulers are well-rested and amenable to recruitment? No uncontrolled fraternization between ‘domicile units’ in the wee hours. Everybody sleeping, waking, and eating in unison. It fits with what Shane has been able to glean from Arthur Conklin’s unreadable book. Insect and animal behavior patterns as they relate to individual success, and how establishing new thought patterns enables the motivated individual to establish a new ‘rule of one.’